Braciole

Braciole is the name of an Italian dish. They are thin slices of meat (typically beef) that are rolled with cheese and bread crumbs and fried; in Italian American cuisine (where the word is commonly pronounced /bra'zhol/ from the Sicilian pronunciation) the bread crumbs are often left off and the braciole are cooked along with meatballs and Italian sausage in Sunday gravy.

It’s important to roll the meat against the grain for the most tender slices after it cooks.

Rachael Ray's Mama's Braciole

FG: These braciole are cooked in a mushroom sauce and are excellent, but can be served with spaghetti and Marinara sauce which compliment it very nicely. I tried several recipes for braciole until I found Rachael Ray's.

8 slices beef braciole, beef very thinly sliced (cut from round steak or flank)
Coarse salt and black pepper
8 slices prosciutto di Parma
1 1/2 cups plain bread crumbs, eyeball it
1/2 cup milk, eyeball it
2/3 cup Parmigiano-Reggiano, 3 handfuls
1 small onion, finely chopped
1/2 cup flat-leaf parsley leaves, a couple of handfuls, chopped
1 cup chopped arugula
Plain round toothpicks
2 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, 2 turns of the pan
2 cloves garlic, cracked away from skin
2 tablespoons butter
12 crimini mushrooms, finely chopped
2 tablespoons flour
1 cup dry white wine
1 cup beef broth
1 rounded tablespoon tomato paste

Season meat with salt and pepper. Top each slice of meat with a slice of prosciutto. In a medium bowl, moisten bread crumbs with milk. Add grated cheese, onion, parsley, arugula, salt and pepper to the crumbs and combine well. Spread a thin layer of stuffing down the center of each beef slice and roll tightly. Fasten rolled meat with plain toothpicks.

Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium high heat. Add oil to a hot pan along with garlic. Set meat into pan and brown on all sides, 6 minutes. Remove the meat from the pan. Add butter to the pan. Add mushrooms to the melted butter. Saute mushrooms 5 minutes. Add flour to the pan and cook 2 minutes. Whisk wine into the flour and mushrooms and scrape up pan drippings. Reduce wine 1 minute, then whisk in beef broth and tomato paste. Set meat back into sauce and reduce heat to medium low. Partially cover pan with a cover left ajar an inch. Simmer meat in sauce 10 to 15 minutes. Transfer beef rolls to a platter, removing toothpicks. Pour pan gravy down over the beef rolls and serve.

The Secret To Making The Best Braciole On Earth
By Hal Licino, https://delishably.com/

Call Them Braciole, Involtini or Rouladen, But Call Them Delicious!

Braciole! Just the word activates my Pavlovian reflexes and starts me drooling. I've had beef dishes all over the world including all the greats, Chateaubriand; Wellington; au Poivre; Stroganoff; Delmonico; and often in Michelin-starred establishments. However, there is nothing that compares to a Southern Mainland Italian braciola!

It's important to specify "Southern Mainland" as depending on where you ask for a braciola, you will receive something very different. In the far north you'll get a barbecued cutlet with the bone attached (!!!) while in Sicily you'll get tiny bite-sized beef rolls on a skewer!

In Northern Italy you'll find a somewhat similar recipe called Involtini, and in Germany, they'll call it Rouladen. But in this case, my friends, we're talking the one and only real Braciola, which is a slice of prime, lean beef, pounded to within an inch of its life; filled with the most delectable mixture on Earth; rolled then browned to seal in all the goodness; and then dropped into a big vat of sauce to simmer all day long.

The greatness of the braciole lies in its fillings. You'll find all sorts of people recommending that you put all sorts of incoherent junk inside your braciole. Disregard them. You should feel indeed honoured as I'm about to share my Mamma's (and her Mamma's and her Mamma's) secret filling for the ultimate braciole.

Ingredients are based on six braciole and 100g equals 3 ounces.

100g Pine Nuts (make sure they're sweet and plump, not dry and acrid)
100g Dark Seedless Small Raisins (never the golden ones)
100g Mozzarella (not Di Bufala, but a good quality pizza cheese)
100g San Daniele Prosciutto (beware of cheaper kinds as they're often too salty)
100g Bread Crumbs (make them from day-old bread or get them from a bakery)
Chopped Parsley, Salt & Pepper

You can either go Rustic or Urban with your braciole filling. Rustic takes the ingredients and stuffs them into the braciole as is. Urban puts the filling ingredients through a food processor until they're the consistency of a chunky pesto. I'm a Rustic man myself, but I won't turn down an Urban braciola either!

Apply your filling to one side of the pounded beef cutlet, roll it up very tightly and now secure it.

There are three ways to keep your braciola well-rolled.

1) Tying (make sure to remove the string prior to serving)

2) Fastening with toothpicks (you always end up leaving one in and having your favorite guest stab his tongue with it)

3) The Master Chef Tieless Tie: Once you've rolled up your braciola so tight that it's as hard as a rock, very quickly roll them in hot oil. You're not trying to cook them, but just to brown the outside very fast so that the outside of the braciola "sets" and maintains its shape during the long cooking process ahead. This takes skill and experience, but when it's done well, it's incredible!

Regardless of how you've secured them, you want to brown your braciole in a very tiny bit of oil until they are golden to dark brown all around (don't forget the ends). At this point, you're ready to fully cover them in a big pot of sauce that you intend to keep simmering for at least the next 4 hours, and 8 is better yet!

Yes, you can go with a conventional pasta sauce, but if you want to experience the ultimate braciola which will immediately make you an evangelistic convert to The Church Of Braciolism, put your scrumptious beef rolls into Neapolitan Genovese sauce. Once the sauce has simmered all day and taken on the flavour of the dark caramelized onions and oozing braciole fillings, you will be a Braciolist for life.

Another recipe similar to this, has you place the braciola in a tomato sauce, "Cover and bake in preheated 325°F oven until steak is very tender, 1 hour, 30 minutes to 2 hours, turning steaks halfway through baking time. Transfer steaks to a large cutting board, and let cool for 10 minutes. Spoon some of sauce in skillet onto a platter. Cut steaks evenly into medallions, and arrange over sauce. Spoon additional sauce over steaks, and garnish with basil, parsley, and remaining 1 tablespoon each Parmigiano-reggiano and Pecorino Romano. Serve immediately with any remaining sauce on the side."

This recipe makes just 2 larger bracioles from 2 (1 1/2 pound each) flank steaks, butterflied and pounded 1/4-inch thick.